man oh man how this directory and the /usr/portage/distfiles gave me tons of space... why aren't files deleted by emerge automatically after an installation has been performed? or perhaps emerge clean should do it

man oh man how this directory and the /usr/portage/distfiles gave me tons of space... why aren't files deleted by emerge automatically after an installation has been performed? or perhaps emerge clean should do it

They are not deleted because not every updated ebuild requires an updated download, and constant re-downloading for 56k users is not the most exciting thing :)

that's true for /usr/portage/distfiles, but the /var/tmp/portage is just a temporary dir, with all sorts of compilation junk in there, especially after a failed emerge. emerge clean (or another option) should probably clean it out... (or your regular /tmp, /var/tmp cleaning process at boot :)